Sometimes you need to leave a place for a while to figure out what makes it unique. After two and a half years down in Washington, I’ve just returned to New York, which I consider home. My time away has caused me to notice things I never paid much attention to before. Like the trash. Read More
Something is different this year. Over eight-top lunches at the Modern and partner dinners at Per Se, there’s a palpable silence between courses. (Thank goodness for BlackBerrys!) Meanwhile, the same question keeps echoing around the corridors of Big Law: Where have all the summer associate scandals gone?
Summer associates—law students who Read More
Whatever happened to Ally McBeal? If recent movies and television shows are any guide, the life of a female lawyer has gotten a lot less pleasant since the carefree, charmingly neurotic days of dancing babies and bathroom kisses. But today’s portrayals may be more accurate, and certainly more critically acclaimed.
Last January, Glenn Close Read More
Here’s a fun game: At the start of the summer, weigh the thousands of summer associates employed by the Am Law 100—the nation’s 100 top-grossing law firms, according to The American Lawyer magazine. Then weigh these thousands of summer associates after their summer programs, before they head back for their final year of law school. Read More
In the 1980s sitcom Mr. Belvedere, the mother of the family, Marsha Owens, worked for a time in a shopping-mall law firm called Legal Hut. It seemed like a good gag at the time—a law office that was part of a big chain, located in the quotidian precincts of a shopping mall, basically a business Read More
Where in the world is Carlos Spinelli-Noseda? Nobody seems to know.
Mr. Spinelli-Noseda, a graduate of Yale College and Harvard Law School, was a young and well-regarded partner in Sullivan & Cromwell’s Latin American practice, as well as the firm’s hiring partner. At some point in the past few weeks—it’s not clear exactly when—his Read More
L’Affaire(s) Spitzer may be old news, but New York lawyers won’t stop talking about it. The Harvard Law School graduate and former attorney general left the law for politics when he assumed the governorship, but based on what I’m seeing and hearing in person, in print, and online (a search for “Spitzer” and “prostitute” on Read More
Last week was my worst week ever. Okay, maybe not ever, but definitely my worst week in 2008.
The trouble started on a Tuesday night. Shortly before I entered a bar to meet a friend for drinks, I updated my Facebook status on my BlackBerry, with an opinion about the upcoming Clinton-Obama debate.
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If the major presidential candidates were top New York law firms, which ones would they be? It’s not an easy question to answer. Unlike their Washington counterparts, which are unsurprisingly more political—e.g., WilmerHale skews leftward, Wiley Rein leans right—New York firms generally lack strong partisan allegiances. This city is driven by transactional work and commercial Read More
In the days leading up to Thursday, Jan. 10, the offices of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft were wracked with anxiety. Something was about to go down at the white-shoe law firm with a knack for attracting both celebrities and bedbugs. But nobody knew what.
The availability of conference rooms at Cadwalader is Read More
